Gears of War was developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Cliff Bleszinski is the lead designer of the game, which runs on Unreal Engine 3.0. The video game is a tactical third-person shooter for both the Xbox 360 and for PC. It was release on November 12, 2006 in North America. The Limited Collector's Edition had bonus features such as art work called Destroyed Beauty and a bonus disc. Gears of War has sold over 2 million copies worldwide, having broken the 1 million mark in the U.S. alone, making it the fastest selling next-gen console game so far. For more info about Gears of War or the sequel, visit this site official site.

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Gears of war takes place from a third person perspective. The gameplay it heavily reliant on an intuitive cover system, which allows players to immediately take shelter behind most objects in the game, and then pop out or blindfire from behind their newfound barrier. Players who don't use cover in campaign are shredded, the same goes for multiplayer, although expect at least one person to shout 'noob' in the latter. Gameplay is generally very fast paced, in multiplayer and singleplayer. Often experienced opponents online will dive continuously when in a one on one situation, planning their next shots carefully – a simple mistake can or miss will be the end for you in such a battle Other than fast paced adrenaline fueled duels are the tactical side of things. Teamwork can be just as, if not more important than individual skill, members of a team that work together, with varied weapons will often trounce trigger happy foes. Flanking is a very viable tactic, with the wide cover orientated maps you can often creep round the side of an enemy team, and pop at least one head.

R-Trigger = Fire weapon (Note: when the grenade is equipped you will see an arc to get a prediction of where the grenade will land.)

R-Bumper = Reload (Note: When the player reloads, he may attempt an active reload. A wave goes through a bar under the gun icon that will show you when to click the R-Bumper again. Hit R-Bumper a second time at the right moment to speed up the reload and power up next clip for a few seconds. This means that the rounds are more powerful and do more damage. Time it wrong and the gun will jam and take even longer until you can fire your gun again. Also note that if you completely miss the active reload section of the reload bar, but you don't jam your gun, you can hit the B button to restart the active reload process. This is an optional feature. The player has the option to reload normally.)

R-Click = Used to zoom in with a sniper rifle. If you are not using the sniper rifle, you will zoom through your binoculars, but you will not be able to shoot during binocular zoom.

L-Bumper = Objectives/Squad Status (Hold this button and other commands come up. Cliffy has not made a statement on whether or not that these commands are on the face buttons or the d-pad) In the OXM June issue number 58, Cliffy B is quoted as saying that the player can "Tell your squad to cease fire, open fire on a target, move to a location, or regroup." This also shows where each member of your squad/team is located.

L-Trigger = Aim Mode (Note: When in cover, the player must use the Left-Trigger to aim at enemies, or he will use blind fire instead.)

L-Click = When in cover, this is used toggle between standing or crouching.

Y-Button = Point of Interest. The player holds this button to look at what the game wants you to see. You are prompted by an icon on screen. Example: When you are told to go through a door, hold Y and the camera will point at this door. This also works during some cinemas, where you get to choose to watch them or ignore them. When no prompt is shown, the player can press Y to look at nearest squad mate to check their status and location.

B-Button = Melee attack (Holding the button down will initiate the chainsaw when using the Lancer Assault Rifle. NOTE: Pressing B also restarts the reload process.)

A-Button = All movement (Hold to roadie run, tap to take cover or tap to evade when not near cover. Player will flip in the direction the Left stick is pointed. Once in cover mode tap A to get out of cover mode. During cover press forward and A to quickly mantle over cover, side and A to swat turn to cover or if no cover is close you roll out. While Roadie running you will quickly mantle over whatever obstacles you come to.)

Fourteen years after Emergence Day, Dominic Santiago releases Marcus Fenix from a penitentiary prison. Marcus was needed in order to fight against the Locust Horde invasion that is happening in Planet Sera. The two soon meet with Delta Squad and are assigned to find the Resonator. The team hastily search their way to the Resonator and use it. Oddly enough, the Resonator failed to destroyed all the Locust tunnels. However, Baird discover a new device with half of the Locust tunnels positions and the way to Adam Fenix's mansion. They soon reach to the Mansion where they discover the hidden laboratory of Marcus' father. There, Jack downloads data of the Locust tunnels and the team rush towards a new repair APC. All during the while, a Brumak attacks, as well as several other Locust, yet they past them and arrive at the train. On the train, the Lightmass Bomb awaits in the very end of the train. Marcus and Dom are the only ones aboard on the train and are on combat towards their way to the Lightmass Bomb. Eventually, they reach there and discover General RAAM is protecting it. The partners soon defeat General RAAM and detonate the Lightmass bomb. As our heroes escape from the explosion, an unknown voice appears, it seems that the Locust Queen clearly states that the war isn't over.

Marcus was sent to prison for quiting his military obligatory in order to try to save his father's life. He was a former COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) and was going up his way to higher prestiges. During the Locust invasion, Dominic Santiago rescued his best friend, Marcus, from the penitentiary and Marcus was soon back into the Military to help fight the Locust. He's currently 35 years old in Gears of War, with the height of 6.1 ft, blue eyes, and black hair. He has a humorous sarcasm, but can take things into serious note. One of his sarcastic jokes was when he just informed how to defeat a Berserker ("It's just the wind").

At a glance gears of war doesn't have a great deal of weapons, eleven in total. However each and every weapon is very different to use , for the most part, and has it's own element of skill. Every player starts the match with the same basic weapons, a pistol, lancer rifle, shotgun and two smoke grenades. Just with this assortment of weapons the player can inflict heavy damage; the lancer has an instant kill melee chainsaw attack, the shotgun is undoubtedly the best close range weapon, and the pistol is good for head shots. Weapons dotted around the map include:

Longshot sniper rifle: The standard sniper this rifle can kill enemy players in a single headshot, or down them with an active bullet.

Boomshot: A locust device capable of hurling explosive shells at opponents, blowing them to pieces instantly. It does have a shot arc, however, so long range shots require great timing and skill.

Torque bow: Essentially a bow that fires explosive arrows. This weapon takes a few seconds to charge up, and once fully charged can only be held at maximum power for around five seconds. Although this limits the weapon somewhat, it can still kill in a single shot, making it a valuable tool.

These are perhaps the more important weapons that the player can find. Although these are on offer, and players spend much of the round fighting over key weapons, it is often the shotgun that is used to handle one vs one encounters. Having a team with balanced weapons is still important, so you can make the most of any battle, be it ranged or close up.

Known as the Locust Horde; the Locust attacked on Emergence Day on planet Sera. They plan on exterminating the whole human race without any thoughts of changing their minds. The Locust live in the Hollow, known as the network of underground tunnels. They also control most of the military centers and most of planet Sera's urban parts. The Locust are Drones, mutated in a sense.

All Gears of War multiplayer options consist up to eight users in a room which has two sides. Only up to four players on each sides. There's two multiplayer options; Rank Matches and Player Matches. Rank Matches are for players that are up for a more challenging competition. Rank matches features Achievements, which gives you points beneath your gamer tag profile. It also allows you to raise your points on the Leaderboard on Gears of War. The downfall is that game invites are disable as well as split screening. Player Match in the other hand, allows you to split screen, chose the bleed time, and allow users to invite to anyone on the Friends List or Recent Players list. Gamers are allowed to choose what game type to pick, what weapons to swap, whether or not to choose friendly fire on, and pick their own map(s).

There's two sides to pick; the COG (which is portrayed in a blue color when select) and the Locust (this side is portrayed a red color). Both sides consist different characters selections that the user may pick. None of the characters have any advantages other than looks. If you just joined the session as a COG, the system will choose Marcus Fenix as your character. Now if you joined as a Locust, you will be a Drone. You can also go through the options menu and change your preferred characters (one for COG and one for Locust) so that when you join a match, whatever side you pick (or are put on) you will automatically use your proffered character. The following are available in the multiplayer option:

Four versus modes are available in both Player Match and Ranked Matches. Warzone, Execution, Assasination, and Annex are all roughly diverse. There's also a King of the Hill mode that is only available on the PC/Macintosh of Gears of War.

Warzone: Almost identical to Team Deathmatch in other shooting games. There are no respawns, you only begin to play again once the next round begins. If your are downed, tapping A rapidly will slow down your death. The bleed-out time (time until you die; if you don't hit A) can be as low as five seconds or up to sixty seconds. The only way you can get back up is by your teammate's help. All that needs to be done is for your teammate to press X while near your downed body. After you've been revived twice, you can be downed again; you will just automatically die. Points are awarded for Kills, Downs, and Revives.

Execution: In this mode, when down, you can rapidly press A to speed up your recovery. It's almost exactly the same as Warzone, except when you are downed, you can only be killed if an opposing player Executes you (Curb stomp, Melee, close range shot, or chainsaw) while you are down. All longer range shots wont have any effect on the downed player. Points are awarded for Kills, Downs, and Revives.

Assassination: In Assassination, there is one team leader on both sides. If killed, the opposing team wins. The team leader is the only one who can pick up weapons, although they can pick up a weapon, they switch it out again in order for a teammate to be able to pick it up and use it. There still no respawns until next round. If your team loses a round, the player on your team with the highest amount of points on your team becomes the new leader. If your team wins the round, the person on your team who killed the opposing Leader in the previous round is the new leader for your team. Once one of the Leaders die, the round is over.

Annex: This multiplayer mode actually has infinite respawns, in intervals of fifteen seconds. Basically, you can die as many times as you want until the amount of points is reached. Annex is almost the same as King of the Hill, except, the hill or the target location is always a weapon spawn point. You must reach the random target location and stay in place until you capture that point, then you must defend it, whilst gaining one point per each second that you hold possession of the zone. After sixty seconds, the zone disappears and re appears at another weapon spawn point, chosen at random by the game. If somebody on the opposite team steals the hill from your team, the player who got there first gets a break. Points are awarded for Captures, Breaks, and Kills. Team points are awarded for maintaining possession of the target locations.